Yeah.dariat felt the personality’s major routines withdrawing from the starscraper. The lights were going off again in the upper floors, autonomic bitek functions shutting down.
He struggled to his knees, shivering intensely. When he looked round he could see ice encrusted on every surface, turning the bar into an arctic grotto. The electrical discharge had melted very little of it. That was probably what had saved them; it was several centimetres thick over the window. And the fracture pattern in the glass underneath was unnervingly pronounced.
Tolton was spasming on the floor, spittle flecking his lips. His hair was rimed with frost. Each shallow panted breath was revealed in a cloud of white vapour.
“Shit.” Dariat staggered over to him. Just in time he remembered not to try and touch the tormented body. Get a medical team down here.
Oh yeah. I’ll get right on it. They should be with you in about three hours.
Shit.he knelt down next to tolton, and leaned right over, staring into delirious eyes. “Hey.” Limpid fingers clicked right in front of Tolton’s nose. “Hey. Tolton. Can you hear me? Try and steady your breathing. Take a deep breath. Come on! You’ve got to calm your body down. Breathe.”
Tolton’s teeth chittered. He gurgled, cheeks bulging.
“That’s it. Come on. Breathe. Deep. Suck that air down. Please.”
The street poet’s lips compressed slightly, making a whistling sound.
“Good. Good. And again. Come on.”
It took several minutes for Tolton’s bucking to subside. His erratic breathing reduced to sharp gasps. “Cold,” he grunted.
Dariat smiled down at him. “Ho boy. You had me worried there. We really don’t need any more ghosts floating around in here right now.”
“Heart. My heart. God! I thought . . .”
“It’s okay. It’s over.”
Tolton nodded roughly, and tried to lever himself up.
“Stop! You just lie there for another minute longer. There’s no paramedic service any more, remember? First thing we need is some proper food for you. I think there’s a restaurant on this floor.”
“No way. As soon as I can get up, we’re leaving. No more starscrapers.” Tolton coughed, and started to glance round. “Jesus.” He scowled. “Are we safe?”
“Sure. For now, anyway.”
“Did we kill it?”
Dariat grimaced. “Not exactly, no. But we gave it a hell of a fright.”
“That lightning bolt didn’t kill it?”
“No. It flew off, though.”
“Shit. I nearly died.”
“Yeah. But you didn’t. Concentrate on that.”
Tolton slowly eased himself into a sitting position, wincing at each tiny movement. Once he was propped up against a table leg, he reached out and caressed the ice which was engulfing a chair, fingers stroking curiously. He gave Dariat a grim look with badly bloodshot eyes. “This isn’t going to have a happy ending, is it?”
The seven hellhawks glided in towards Monterey, acknowledging the query from the SD network defence as the sensors locked on.
The Sevilla SD network was a hell of a lot stronger than anything we were briefed about,they told jull von holger, when he asked how the mission had gone. Seven frigates were lost, and we’re all that’s left of our squadron.
Did the infiltration succeed?
We think over a hundred got through.
Excellent.
Neither side said anything more. Jull von Holger could sense the quiet rage of the surviving hellhawks. He chose not to mention the fact to Emmet Mordden; the hellhawks were all Kiera’s problem.
Go straight to the docking ledges,hudson proctor told the hellhawks. We’ve already cleared the pedestals. You’ll be fed as soon as you land.he focused on kiera’s face. she smiled her brightest ingйnue smile, pouring as much gratitude into her thoughts as possible for her deputy to relay. “Well done. I know it’s not easy, but believe me there won’t be many more of these ridiculous seeding missions.” She arched an eyebrow in query to Hudson. “Was there a reply?”
He coloured slightly at the emotional backlash to her little speech that flooded the affinity band. “No. They’re pretty tired.”
“I understand.” Her sweet expression hardened. “End your contact.”
Hudson Proctor nodded curtly, signalling it had been done.
“You hope there ain’t going to be many more seeding flights, you mean,” Luigi said indolently.
The three of them were sitting in one of the smaller, more private lounges above the asteroid’s docking ledges, waiting for the last member of their group to arrive. Kiera’s small revolution had picked up a respectable degree of momentum over the last ten days. The success of the seeding flights had bolstered Al’s popularity and authority considerably. But that triumph came with a high price in terms of starships, and quite a few people were starting to acknowledge that the infiltration campaign was short-termism. Slowly, quietly, Kiera had exploited that. Being able to see the dissatisfaction and worry in people’s minds gave her a handy advantage when it came to spotting potential recruits.
Silvano Richmann came in and took his seat around the coffee table. There was a cluster of bottles in the centre, he poured himself a shot of whisky.
“The Sevilla flotilla is back,” Kiera told him. “Seven frigates and five hellhawks got zapped.”
“Fuck.” Silvano shook his head in dismay. “Al’s putting together another fifteen of these missions. He just doesn’t see it.”
“He sees it the way he wants to see it,” Kiera said. “They’re successful in that they’re landing infiltrators each time. The Confederation is going apeshit. We’re knocking off five of their planets a day. It buys him complete respect and loyalty with the Organization down on the planet.”
“While my fleet gets chopped to shit,” Luigi snapped. “That goddamn whore Jezzibella. She’s got him by the balls.”
“Not just your fleet,” Kiera said. “I’m losing hellhawks fast. Much more of this, and they’ll leave.”
“Where to?” Silvano asked. “They’ve got to stick with you. That was a neat sting you pulled on them with the food.”
“The Edenists keep making offers to try and lure them away,” Hudson said. “Etchells keeps us informed. The latest offer is that they’ll actually accept the blackhawk host personality into their habitat neural strata, leaving our guys as the only soul in there. In exchange they get all the food they want, providing they just cooperate with the Edenists, help them find out about our powers.”
“Shit,” Silvano muttered. “We gotta stop this. I’d be mighty tempted by any offer that got rid of this body’s host soul.”
“Wouldn’t we all,” Kiera said. She sat back and sipped at her wine. “Okay, the question is, how far are you
